


Mr Abernathy’s shop of wonders

by hala_macaron



Category: Original Work
Genre: Draft! As always, F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:42:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28406451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hala_macaron/pseuds/hala_macaron
Summary: What happens when you try to steal from a demon, try to trap or kill him?Nothing good, I can assure you





	Mr Abernathy’s shop of wonders

There is that shop near Crooked Lane you should not enter. Crooked Lane, where the filth of the city meets the scum of the world, is not a street you should walk down on principle. If you happen to stumble upon it however after a night at the pub, enter the shop. The street will play tricks on your mind, lead you down an endless maze. The shop will do no such things unless provoked.

It will seem imposing at first, dark wood and even darker stone, polished and refined. It is both inviting and repulsing. You’ll know whatever it resides there to be dangerous, but you’ll have to choose which danger you’d rather be exposed to; Crooked Lane, or Mr Abernathy’s Shop Of Wonders.

You’ll chose the shop. Whatever energy sends shivers down your spine and makes the hairs at the back of your neck stand up is a better choice than reliving the worst moments of your life for an entire night. So you enter the shop without thinking, driven by the need to hide and to be protected.

If you knew what lurked in the corners of Mr Abernathy’s Shop Of Wonders, you would rather spend a hundred nights outside. Be that as it may.

If you are a soul in desperate need of protection, he might take pity on you, might welcome you with open arms and keep you save from the cruel storm brewing in your own mind.

If you are a soul desperate for help, he might make a deal with you, as beings like him are wont to do.

If you go there with a sinister purpose, with the intention to somehow do harm to his precious belongings, well, you should have chosen Crooked Lane. Or Heart’s Park nearby. For once you enter the shop, you will never leave the way you expect.

The residents of Crooked Lane might hear some screams but who can say they come from Mr Abernathy’s shop? The good fellow surely has gone home already. No, no, the screams must come from some poor drunkard stumbling down the street and falling victim to its mind games.

Perhaps that is what they like to tell themselves. It is certainly easier, is it not? To pretend there is nothing wrong, nothing for you to do or to change. It’s not your fault these people keep coming to Crooked Lane this late, even though there are signs everywhere warning them. If they scream, they scream. It has nothing to do with any resident.

17 October

5:00 PM

The bells above his door jingle, signalling the arrival of his first and only customer for the day.

The sky is a dark greyish blue and thunder rumbles in the distance. The world beyond the doors of Ellanher’s shop is preparing for a storm, and judging by the scent of the air, it’ll be a big one. Violent, even.

Delight makes Ellanher’s chest swell and he flaps his hands, once, twice, to get rid of the giddy tingles. He likes storms, quite a lot actually. It may be weird given his background but he has long since stopped caring about how he came to Earth. So he crashed. Hard. He wasn’t the only one who did.

It doesn’t really matter anymore. Time to greet his customer.

He stops shortly before entering his shop from the back, the shadows hissing around him. Ellanher hums, long fingers clad in black and gold gloves reaching out to call them to him. They do so instantly, curling around him in a protective circle, circling his limbs like overly affectionate pets. The demon chuckles, eyes flickering between colours too quickly for any mortal to notice.

‘What is it then that has you all riled up, hm?’

The words are spoken freely. If one speaks in tongues, there is no need to worry whether someone might overhear. It is easily explained after all: creative curse words or Latin. Perhaps German.

Right now only his shadows understand him, as it should be. They wind tighter around the demon’s frame, hissing and spitting.

‘ **Thief** ,’ they say excitedly, their bloodlust carrying through the air, making the rest of Ellanher’s shop interior stir in curiosity. It’s not like he can blame them. It _has_ been a long time since they had someone come in here to try and do something as foolish as steal.

‘ **A thief has come to our home**.’

Ellanher sighs, calming the rising ire of his environment. His own anger simmers beneath the surface, coiled up and tense, ready to strike and devour. He won’t though. It wouldn’t do to simply go outside and slaughter someone without giving them a chance to show him how rotten they were first.

You don’t tear into a killer with the same ferocity you tear into a pedophile. Or at least that’s what Ezekiel said to him the last time they met for coffee.

Ellanher snorts, shaking his head. Ezekiel likes to say many funny things like these when he visits his fallen brother. God knows they meet. No, really, he does. He sees everything, he just doesn’t care about everything. Or anything if you were to ask Ellanher.

If he is being honest, Ellanher doesn’t necessarily see the need to kill a thief in a different way than a murderer, or a pedophile, or a rapist. They all die by either his teeth or claws when they inevitably piss him off.

No, no. The difference is the foreplay. How long he plays with them, how much false security he allows them to think themselves in. By the time he is done with them, they’re all dead one way or another.

He hums, scratching the head of one shadow coil that transformed itself into a cat, its eyes bigger than they should be and glowing like embers.

‘Let us see what our little thief wants to steal.’

The thief in question is a woman. She works for an agency working together with a few different churches. It’s a fairly easy concept: Members of the church identify demons, unholy beings and whatnot, and then they pay the agency to either dispose of the creatures or, if they happen to have a mortal identity, drag their ass to court.

In other words they are glorified assassins. Ellanher has heard of agencies like hers before, he just doesn’t know hers exists. He will find out soon enough. However, knowing she’s here to steal is far more important to him than knowing which clown sent her.

She is inspecting one of his grandfather clocks when he enters the room, having shed his shadows beforehand.

‘Good afternoon my dear. Quite the horrible weather we’re having, no?’ he announces himself, never losing the friendly smile he placed on his face.

She flinches and turns around. Her attire almost fractures the demon’s smile. She doesn’t look comfortable in the suit at all, not like herself. It’s business from head to toe and, although tasteful, not at all suited for her. She shuffles her feet, smoothing non-existent wrinkles out of her blouse.

‘Mr Abernathy, right?’ Her smile is warm, sincere and a slight bit apologetic. Ellanher knows she is a liar, has to believe she is. He knows what to do with liars. ‘You’re right, we are having horrible weather. I’m terribly sorry for intruding but I fear I won’t be able to go home during the storm and all the other shops already closed down.’ As if on cue, thunder rumbles outside and rains starts pouring.

‘Of course my dear, please, take a seat. Would you like some tea?’

He vanishes into the back before she can answer. She will have tea with him, whether she really wants some or not. This little lamb owes him for coming here to steal.

Ellanher snaps his fingers, observing the woman in one of the mirrors as he prepares the tea. She is looking around, opening boxes and putting them back when she can’t find what she’s looking for. Drawing his eyebrows together, he boils the water too quickly, burning himself when a few drops land on him.

One of his shadows curls up on his shoulder, whispering words to him in a voice not its own. It spied on the thief, remembered her words.

‘ **It has to be somewhere around here** ,’ it says, her frustration evident. ‘ **No one captures people on paper and then keeps them hidden**.’

Something shatters. Ellanher’s dropped a cup, fingers curling around the edge of the table. He can feel his fangs growing at such insolence, his instincts urging him to go and just tear her apart. He doesn’t like having his honour insulted.

Ellanher never _captures_ people. He kills, traps, tortures. He doesn’t capture.

Muttering words under his breath that come out more as growls than words, he pats the little coiled shadow affectionately with one finger. So their little thief is looking for his arcana. Very well, she can have it. Just not the way she is expecting.

He summons the card deck with a wave of his hand, feels the familiar weight, the energy flowing through him, mingling with his own in greeting. The back of the cards is pitch black, plain in comparison to the actual pictures on them. Ellanher crafted them himself and he had never, while doing so, captured people. He captured magic in the cards. Magic that was freely given to him.

Setting both the tea and the deck on the small table between them, he smiles.

‘I think a good story always goes well with a cup of tea, don’t you agree? Luckily I have quite a few of them right here.’ He taps the card deck, both delighted and angry at the poorly disguised hunger in her eyes.

She thinks this will be easier than anticipated. He knows that to be true. She doesn’t know she’s both right and wrong at the same time.

The fairly lights in his clocks turn on when all other light in the shop dims. Ellanher doesn’t know why they seem to always appear in his clocks and nowhere else. It’s not like he minds terribly, it’s just odd.

He turns the first card around, watching the gold catch in her green eyes.

‘Welcome to Mr Julian Abernathy’s shop of wonders,’ he whispers. ‘Let’s start chronologically, shall we? Each and every card of my arcana has it’s very own story. And the first one is this.’ He taps the card lightly, grinning as the golden circle moves, then disappears. Time to get this started.

‘The fool.’


End file.
